Welcome. Adherents of other world faiths form the majority of ‘minority ethnic’ people in Britain, yet the issue of relationships between us has tended to slip off the radar in the past few years. Below I try to consider how the Accession of Charles the Third as ‘Defender of the Faith’ brings it back into focus.
Protectors or Proclaimers amidst Religious Diversity?
The Faith of the Church of England has a new Defender. Although earlier King Charles has wobbled and thought ‘defender of faith’ (or ‘the faiths’) was a more appropriate title, it is likely that his Coronation will retain the traditional ‘Defender of the Faith’. But how that role should be carried out in a plural society of many faiths, and a secular society where church attendance has plummeted is a contentious question.
It was addressed in last week’s Church Times by Nick Spencer who shared the dilemma for the Church of England, and indeed for himself, in balancing what the Archbishop of Canterbury has characterised as being an ‘umbrella’ for all faiths (or, in King Charles’ words a ‘protector of faiths’) alongside a ‘missional’ calling for the church make disciples of all peoples? A mission that Nick Spencer sees as essential to the Church’s very survival. So, how can we hold up a protective ‘umbrella’ over other faiths, and yet also hold out a missionary call for all to bow to Jesus as Lord? Or, in Nick’s metaphor, how can we be simultaneously both a neutral referee and yet also a player ‘invested in the result’?
Having spent 31 years as vicar of a parish with a substantial South Asian, largely Hindu, majority, I have experienced these tensions; and whilst being a parish priest is a less complex role than being the archbishop of the national Church, I would want to suggest that seeking to be sympathetic to both roles it is not quite as difficult as Nick frames it.
What should the ‘umbrella cover?
Partly it is a question of not over-playing the meaning of being an ‘umbrella’ for all faiths, or their ‘protector’. As the Established Church (of England) in a nation that has received millions of people of other major world faiths we have a calling to offer them generous hospitality - that is, to protect from both secularised marginalisation or suppression on the one hand, and racist derision and aggression on the other. But such protection should not and can not offer protection from the interrogation, disagreement or outright criticism that is the lot of every religion, philosophy and world-view in a plural society.
Clearly there are aspects of other world faiths that Christians should not be protecting. This applies to particular procedures which are widely regarded with abhorrence, such as female genital mutilation. But drawing a line between what aspects of another faith are ‘acceptable’ and need protecting, as against aspects deserving of critique from either a Christian or secularist perspective is not an easy task. In effect, it means non-Muslims putting themselves in the position of adjudicating what is ‘true’ Islam, so presenting either politically convenient sanitised versions of Islam on the one hand, or seeing security risks in what some believers regard as essentials of their faith on the other.
Further in a society where, with the exception of Ulster, Christian faith now carries very little ‘identity’ freight, we can be unresponsive to ways in which religious and political identity can be intertwined. How far is the recent violence between Muslims and Hindus in Leicester simply youthful aggression not dissimilar to that which still occasionally happens between football supporters, and how far is it inherently ‘religious’ in a way that hardly any Christians in England would be able to resonate with?
In other words, how capacious should the Archbishop’s Anglican umbrella be in covering expressions of non-Christian religious faith in Britain?
Being both an ‘umbrella’ and being missional are central Christian callings.
For Christians there are several elements of our faith that tend to divert our interactions with people of other faiths away from the sharp edges of hard confrontation and into positive relationships. Firstly, our belief in a good and loving Creator, in whose image all people are made, should (and I think usually does) lead to respect, open attentiveness and warmth based on our common humanity – attitudes which do not preclude open differences or the desire to change the other person’s heart and mind. Increasingly Christians live next door to and work alongside people of other faiths, in a way that is usually harmonious and positive. (In taking funerals of elderly English people I have been struck by how frequently they are attended by South Asian neighbours).
Secondly, our commitment to the common good should develop people ‘ready for every good work, to speak evil of no-one, to avoid quarrelling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone’ (Titus 3:1,2). Our church ran a lunch-time club for pupils of the school over the road. There was no explicit presentation of the Christian faith – in that sense it was a neutral ‘umbrella’ for students of any and no faith; and yet in showing a desire to help the pupils and school in their work it was a missional demonstration of a faith that loved, valued and was ready to serve all people.
Exhibiting that welcome and yet, in other contexts, declaring that as Paul told the Athenians, God now ‘commands all people everywhere to repent’ (Acts 17:30) is not inconsistent, it is simply seeking to know when to express faith in a God who is both our Creator and our Saviour, a tension that most Christians live with every day as they live out their faith in secular contexts. They may struggle at times in how to communicate the challenge of their faith whilst maintaining friendly and trusting relationships, but that is the case whether their colleagues are simply secular unbelievers rather than having some involvement with another faith community; indeed the latter may be more sympathetic listeners to our testimony.
In reality, seeking to express the faith in different modes can lead to tensions or misunderstandings. The imam’s daughter who welcomed the fact that we thought that basically there were no differences between our faiths presented the split-second decision of whether to correct her false gloss on our friendship or to let it pass. But again, more widely when churches express a generous and warm welcome to people we raise the danger that people elide this openness into unthinkingly assuming we have a generous agnosticism about the content of our faith.
An underlying factor here is simply that people do seek to find a faith that is a meaningful inner reality and this leads many coming from different religious backgrounds to find faith in Christ, and this without attempts at aggressive or intrusive evangelism. I think of the substantial number of Iranians who have become Christians, disillusioned with the form of Islam found in their home country, or several people I know for whom marriage to a fairly nominal Christian eventually led to them both finding a living faith. Nick’s fear that ‘mission’ unavoidably leads to the ripping of the umbrella is over-stated. Mature Christians from other religious backgrounds have often learned by experience how to share their faith wisely with people from their previous religion. I believe the Church needs to be bolder and more faithful in letting their understanding shape our policies.
The ‘Umbrella’ and ‘Mission’ tension is widespread and long-standing.
The tension Nick identifies in fact has run longer and wider than he recognises. The Church in the Middle Ages knew full well the conflicts between meeting the demands of the civil power and retaining its rights to govern its own affairs. An Archbishop lost his life over it. Then in the Seventeenth century a king lost his life in resisting the claims of Believers in how the country should be run.
So, the need that has arisen over the past seventy years to sustain civil cohesion between members of different faiths and to be faithful in proclaiming that ‘no one comes to the father except through me’ is in many ways simply a continuation of long-standing, indeed perhaps unavoidable, tension for any church that seeks to both live out the demands of its faith and simultaneously serve its society. It is very often part of the everyday experience of Christians navigating how to live out their faith in workplaces where open expression of faith is seen as an unwelcome intrusion into the organisation’s sense of shared identity. The advent of religious pluralism has both partly echoed but also partly intensified that pressure.
As regards relationships with other world faiths, tensions arose in the 1970s over questions of how far church buildings should be available to other faith groups. Perhaps the most intense debates were in the late 1980s over elements of inter-faith worship at the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey. Rather than only surfacing in the 1990s as Nick suggests, we have in fact since come to a more settled stance of both warm-hearted mutual respect on the one hand and clearer commitment to maintaining a clear Christian identity, including its missional nature on the other. Thus the issue of inter-faith worship has rightly slipped down the agenda, not least because very few Muslims welcome it, but also because the Church has developed a more assured stance, seeking to avoid dilution of our distinctive faith but also ready to interrogate that faith in company with those of other faiths, notably in Scriptural Reasoning.
I recognise that the yachts of parish churches can navigate the tricky currents of religious diversity more nimbly than the super-tanker of the central Established Church structure but holding on to our dual calling to protect the freedoms of all faiths within the law, and yet also to publicly bear witness to faith in Christ (as the Archbishop did superbly in his sermon at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth) is not impossible. Establishment does give the Church of England a responsibility of restraint in proclaiming our faith that free churches do not have to the same extent; but restraint and the trust it builds up can also give credibility to our witness in a religiously diverse society.